“Oh?”
“I’m not telling you more.”
“Oh?”
“I know you’re here fishing for information that you can pass on to the higher-ups. . who will then interfere with the investigation. . or screw it up. But that won’t happen on my watch.”
“Oh?”
“I already instructed Wangelin not to leak or disclose any information on the investigation to anyone. . including you. . unless I tell her to do so.”
“Breaking the chain of command so early in the investigation?”
“Quite the opposite Thorsen. I’m following it. She reports to me and I report to you.”
“Make sure you do a lot of that. I need to hear from you twice a day. In the morning just before noon and in the afternoon no later than three-thirty.”
“Of course. Heaven forbid that you. . like everyone else in Norway. . be one minute late getting out of the office after four o’clock.”
“Sohlberg you’ve forgotten your own country. . haven’t you? We’re efficient here in Norway. There’s no need for overtime.”
“I’m sure you need to get out at four so you can hit the links during the summer.”
“Who told you I play golf?”
“Word gets around.”
“Well. . it’s outdated gossip. I no longer play golf.”
“Oh?” said Sohlberg who enjoyed his turn to act coy.
“I bowl.”
“Bowling?”
“Ja. I’m sure you’ve heard of it Mister International Traveler.”
“Oh?”
“I’m taking lessons and getting quite good at it.”
“I’m sure you are. I wonder. . who else bowls in the department. . or in the Ministry of Justice?”
“None of your bee’s wax!” Ivar Thorsen jumped up and left. He almost slammed into Constable Wangelin and her giant coffee mug which offered third degree burns in any spill.
“What’s bothering him Chief Inspector?”
“His new hobby.”
“Hhhmm. Weird. Shall we continue with the summary?”
“Ja. Read on.”
“Agnes Haugen left the school no later than nine and went about her regular day doing errands and household chores.”
“What errands? What chores?”
“She went back home to pick up the baby and post pictures that she took of Karl Haugen at the science fair. . she uploaded the pictures into Facebook and other social network websites on the Internet.”
“Wait a minute. . did she leave the baby alone at home?”
“No. Her husband stayed in that day.”
“What? Wasn’t he at work?”
“No. He called in sick. We confirmed this from Nokia. We also found out that he was logged into his company’s computers from eight in the morning to three in the afternoon. There’s no doubt it was him because the work involved is highly specialized design engineering on computer chips. According to his boss at Nokia only someone with his expertise and experience could have made the entries found that day in Nokia’s design systems.”
“But why was he working on his work computer if he called in sick that day?”
“Nokia told us that he called in sick for himself and not because his kids or wife were sick. He was very vague when we pressed him for details on his sickness and whether he had gone to a doctor or told anyone else that he was sick.”
“What did the team finally find out?” said Sohlberg who grew increasingly curious as to the little boy’s father.
“Gunnar Haugen admitted that he should not have called in sick but rather. . should’ve taken family leave because his daughter was sick and crying all night long and keeping him awake.”
“And yet he was wide-awake enough to work for hours on complicated engineering and computer chip design.”
“Now that you mention it. . his statement is nonsense if he worked all day on his computer and yet claimed to be kept up the previous night.”
“Did Nokia ever give you a minute-by-minute record on what he was doing on the computer? Is there a chance he could’ve just logged on and then walked away?”
“Oh boy. . we sure didn’t get any information like that from Nokia.”
“Get it. Also. . did he or his wife take the baby to the doctor or call a doctor?”
“No. They did
Sohlberg rubbed his chin. “Strange.”
“You’ll see just how strange Chief Inspector. The boy’s father is an odd duck. Very intelligent and yet seems oddly detached. . almost absent-minded. . even dumb and naive on some things.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Ja. I always remember how strange it was to hear him repeat things that his wife had previously mentioned to us. . his eyes always got a glassy look whenever she was around. . it was like he was a zombie robot repeating verbatim whatever his wife wanted him to say to us.”
“Like what?”
“I just can’t put my finger on it. He was. . an echo chamber of his wife.”
“And he’s a scientist type?”
“Ja Chief Inspector. . he’s definitely Mister Cold Logic. . a science and math guy.”
“People like that think the world is just about plugging numbers into some magical formula here or there. . Or is he a business type?. . They think everything in life is profit or loss or that life is all about good or bad
“Ja! He’s an egghead. .
“A what?”
“You know. . book smart but not street smart.”
“Ja! This is a man whose naive or stupid enough to lie to his employer about being sick. Then he lies to us about being kept up all night by a sick baby and yet he puts in a day’s work the following day at his home computer
“Like I said Chief Inspector. . he’s an odd duck.”
“Did the baby’s mother Agnes call or visit a doctor for her sick baby daughter?”
“No. She took the baby and left her husband alone for a couple of hours. . from eleven in the morning to two o’clock in the afternoon. . she drove around with the baby to get the baby’s medicine at a pharmacy. She then went to her workout at the gym. . with the baby.”
“She took the baby and left him all alone?”
“Ja.”
“Why would you take a sick baby in your car to go buy the baby’s medicines when one parent is already staying at home and not going to work?. .Why would anyone take a sick baby to a gym. . and drop off the sick baby at the gym’s daycare?”
“I. . well at the time no one thought it strange. They both made it sound so natural. Now that you mention it. . it does sound strange indeed.”
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“True. We found that she did indeed drive around with the baby looking for medicines.”
“What’s the proof?”
“At nine-twelve in the morning we have a credit card purchase by her for candy at a SPAR neighborhood
